Mike Huckabee Compares Abortion To the Holocaust

This past weekend at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Celebrate Life event, former Arkansas Governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee called for an end what he termed "an incredible Holocaust of our own" in regards to abortion in America. Huckabee believes that since 1973, 55 million babies (actually, fetuses) have been more or less systematically murdered by some kind of modern Gestapo comprised of women who get abortions.

The Holocaust was a sinister and destructive attempt to remove the entire Jewish and non-Aryan population in Germany and its occupied territories from existence by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. An abortion is not sinister, nor does it cause mass destruction. It also does not attempt to erase an entire population from existence. Abortion is about a woman or couple with limited options seeking to make decisions that will make their lives manageable. Huckabee is right to think that life is precious, but a life with a child without support — financially, emotionally etc. — can be devastating.

Every woman should have the right to choose what happens to her body, but that is not often the case. Of course, it would be great if no woman ever had to have an abortion again. I wish no woman ever had to get an abortion. If from now on every pregnancy occurred in a manner pleasing to all parties, where there was consent, funding, healthcare, acceptance of adoption possibilities, etc., then there might be no need for abortion — but that is naïve and unrealistic. Condoms break, rapes occur, teenagers and even adults are often uneducated and may not have access to contraceptives, all situations in which having an unplanned baby becomes immeasurably difficult and life-altering for the worse.

There are so many areas and arguments for conversation on the topic of abortion that evoke an emotional response to humanity. In America, we have the religious and the affected, women, and politicians all weighing in on the topic of abortion; it is too complex an issue to be compared to one gruesome event in history. Though Huckabee claims in his speech that the prolife movement should not condemn those who have had abortions or who also support prochoice, his harsh and inaccurate comparison to the Holocaust does just that.